“For its 69th season, the Aspen Music Festival and School will host more than 400 events and concerts over eight weeks,” reports Andrew Travers in Thursday’s (1/2) Aspen Times (Colorado). “The 2017 festival has been curated around the theme of ‘enchantment,’ exploring myths, fairy tales, magic and what Music Festival President and CEO Alan Fletcher called ‘the transformative power of music.’ Among the dozen-plus themed concerts are Ravel’s opera L’enfant et les sortileges on July 21, Zemlinsky’s The Mermaid on July 23 and Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice on July 5.… The season will include the world premieres of new concertos by Fletcher, written for and performed by pianists Inon Barnatan on July 30 and Matthew Ricketts on Aug. 9. Jennifer Koh will perform a violin concerto July 19 written for her by Anna Clyne, followed two days later by Gil Shaham performing Jonathan Leshnoff’s violin concerto.… The season will close Aug. 20 with an Aspen Festival Orchestra performance of Berlioz’s epic The Damnation of Faust … conducted by Robert Spano, who returns as the festival’s music director.… About 600 of the world’s most promising music students are expected for the season, along with a 200-member faculty of teaching artists.”
Posted February 2, 2017
